This was actually the coda of another song that we no longer play. A few years ago, I was visiting my then girlfriend in California and standing in a grocery store waiting on line to pay when I noticed the self-checkout area.

I'm sure it had existed for a long time, but this was the first time I'd seen any kind of self-checkout. I don't know if it was because my girlfriend and I were starting to grow apart or what, but the idea of self-checkout really got to me. You could walk into a store, by all the food you need - food handled and harvested by people (well machines and some people) -, but never have to talk to anyone and maybe never see anyone, at the time it was dramatically isolating.

The world has been getting closer and paradoxically more solitary since the industrial revolution, I learned that in high school. I learned about the coldness of urban life in high school too, but I suppose that moment on a very nice day in a very regular grocery store was one of the first times I had a personal experience with the world and my lonely proximity to it. The song itself wasn't that good and the words were too clever and confusing for their own good, but the last line felt like it succinctly said everything that I wanted to say. So we decided to just say it a few times in a row.